WPF Flow Document For Beginners

As part of an article that I am creating for www.codeproject.com I decided to look into using the System.Windows.Documents namespace and have a look at seeing if I could make a semi-cool’ish looking document.

Now when you use FlowDocuments, there are several container WPF container controls which you may host a FlowDocument in. These WPF container controls vary in what they provide. Lets see the difference shall we

• FlowDocumentScrollViewer : Simply displays the entire document and provides a scroll bar. Like a web page
• FlowDocumentPageViewer : Shows document as individual pages, and allows user to adjust zoom level.
• FlowDocumentReader : Combines FlowDocumentScrollViewer and FlowDocumentPageViewer into a single control, and exposes text search facilities.

For example a FlowDocumentPageViewer is as shown below

For those of who have not come across the FlowDocument, here is a list of some of the things that can be done with it

• Allow paragraphing
• Allow anchoring of images
• Allow hyperlinks
• Allow text blocks
• Allow tables
• Allow subscript/superscript text
• Allow UIElements (such as Button etc etc)
• Allow text effects

Think of FlowDocument(s) as a mini desktop publishing type interface. Though I’m sure things like Quark are going to yield more flexability. Never the less, the results of FlowDocument(s) could be thought as be able to create that sort of page publishing type layout.

What I’m going to do now is show you how to create a few of the various FlowDocument elements both in XAML and in code as they are little different actually.

PARAGRAPH

In XAML

<!– FLOW DOCUMENT VIEWER START –>    
<FlowDocumentPageViewer x:Name=”flowDocViewer”  Margin=”0,0,0,0″ 
    Background=”#FF414141″ Zoom=”80″ >         
<!– FLOW DOCUMENT START –>
<FlowDocument x:Name=”flowDoc” Foreground=”White” FontFamily=”Arial”  >
<Paragraph x:Name=”para1″ FontSize=”11″>

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</Paragraph>
</FlowDocument>
</FlowDocumentPageViewer>

In C# code behind

Paragraph paraHeader = new Paragraph();
paraHeader.FontSize = 12;
paraHeader.Foreground = headerBrsh;
paraHeader.FontWeight = FontWeights.Bold;
paraHeader.Inlines.Add(new Run(“Paragraph Text”));
flowDoc.Blocks.Add(paraHeader);

HYPERLINKS

In XAML

<Paragraph FontSize=”11″>

     <Hyperlink  Click=”hl_Click” NavigateUri=”www.google.com”>Click Here</Hyperlink>

</Paragraph>

In C# code behind

Paragraph paraValue = new Paragraph();Hyperlink hl = new Hyperlink(new Run(
    “Click Here To View The Link Data”));

hl.FontSize = 11;hl.NavigateUri = new Uri(nonNullprop.PropertyValue);

hl.Click += new RoutedEventHandler(hl_Click);paraValue.Inlines.Add(hl);

flowDoc.Blocks.Add(paraValue);

EMBEDDING UI ELEMENTS

In XAML

<BlockUIContainer>

    <Button Width=”60″ Height=”60″ Click=”Button_Click”>

        Click me

    </Button>

</BlockUIContainer>

In C# code behind

BlockUIContainer uiCont = new BlockUIContainer();

Button b = new Button();

b.Width = b.Height = 60;

b.Click += new RoutedEventHandler(Button_Click);

b.Content = “Click me”;

flowDoc.Blocks.Add(uiCont);

Of course this is only touching the surface of what can be done with FlowDocuments. But it gives you an idea of how flexable the formatting of documents is with WPF.

The screen shot below shows an example with some Paragraphs/Tables/Hyperlinks and UIElements in place